Light green algae on substrate?

[Yinzer]

I have a light green algae on my substrate. I recently purchased a Sea Grass Wrasse a few weeks ago and he burrows deep. This algae problem started around that time. I have another factors have changed too. I am down to 4 50/50 PC 96 watt lights from 6 because of dead ballast. I change about 20 gal every week. I still do not use RODI yet but use highly purified water.

I will upload pic soon.

 

[Stray32]

Check your Phosphates. If they are in check, I'd say its your lighting. Do a water change and shorten your photo period for a few days and it should disappear.

 

[bmiller1234]

what do you mean when you say highly purified water. Do you have a tds meter? I used to battle algae constantly when I was using wal mart ro on my small tank. Once I got my rodi unit it cleared up in 3 weeks. Started big tank with rodi and only do about 10 gallons a week sometimes 5 and have no problems. Just a few hair patches that get munched on occasionally. I don't have a huge bio load and water changes are more for calc and alk than nit and phos. Chaetos growing like mad though.

 

[Yinzer]

Thanks.

Looksliked i'm gonna have to wait til midweek. Tomorrow didn't work and i had an injection into my spinal cord today so I'm out of commission until Tuesday. I'm really excites to see your Zoas I hear you have some good ones.

 

[Drone]

sounds like cyno. If your tank's new it's just a part of maturing. If it's mature it could be phosphate probs.

 

[Stray32]

Thanks.

Looksliked i'm gonna have to wait til midweek. Tomorrow didn't work and i had an injection into my spinal cord today so I'm out of commission until Tuesday. I'm really excites to see your Zoas I hear you have some good ones.

You are welcome to stop by any night this week. I am outta town this weekend though.

 

[cloakerpoked]

How deep is the sand bed. It is very possible that by the wrasse burrowing into the sandbed, he is releasing a lot more nitrogen and nitrate into the water column, which is basically fertilizer for algae. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that it very well could be this, and not necessarily phosphate related at all (assuming that you've been using the same water for a protracted period of time.)

 

[LeviChar1]

Yinzer, I think Cloak is right. Your tank is mature enough to be susceptible to this. Its not old enough to have build dense sand micro-animals, and there are many pockets of material within the sand that will be there until the wrasse releases it or the micro-animals populate all areas of you bed (can take years). A phosphate sponge or two should work fine for you. Good call, Cloak. Yinzer's tank will be awful nice once its had more time to mature (and he gets that big ugly orange-pink fake coral piece out of there! LOL) hehe. blew u in, Yinzer! Hope you're feeling better.

 

[Yinzer]

Thanks guys, here are some pics, I am blaming the wrasse too. is there any remedy to his stirring stuff up...other than getting rid of him? what is a phosphate sponge?

and btw, that orange thing is getting covered in coraline now like I hoped.

and as for my medical procedure, it went well and I am ok. It was just wierd sitting there while a guy inserted needles into my spine from the front while I was wide awake. I guess it beats getting my vertabrate fused at 34 years old.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Eventually, the spots he goes too will release all their gunk, and your water will hit a saturation point, then regress back to normal. As long as your coral isn't getting ticked off, just make sure the skimmer is running, change your carbon often, and maybe look into GFO if you really want to try something different before losing the wrasse.

 

[Yinzer]

Yeah, the corals are ok, the clam is ok and the sandbed is about 2" maybe 2.5". I'm gonna let it go for a little and see if it clears up. Its not on the glass or the rocks, just the substrate.

 

[Yinzer]

on another note, do you think its time to move those zoas away from the Xenia? The Xenia seem to be creepin up on them. It doesnt look like they are bothering each other but I dont know.